


scatter the grace in your eyes

by orphan_account



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Pacific Rim Fusion, Angst with a Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M, The Drift (Pacific Rim), grieving & accepting loss, haechan and johnny are brothers, they walk through each other's memories and learn to forgive themselves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-13
Updated: 2021-02-13
Packaged: 2021-03-13 08:00:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29398746
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: “Mark, don’t make a boy a promise if you know you can’t keep it.”
Relationships: Lee Donghyuck | Haechan/Mark Lee
Comments: 5
Kudos: 18
Collections: Love Dream 2020





	scatter the grace in your eyes

**Author's Note:**

  * For [birthtwinss](https://archiveofourown.org/users/birthtwinss/gifts).



The whirring of machinery around Haechan was drowned out by the blue haze overtaking his vision.

He’s in a foggy orange-golden wheat field. The sky is dark but it doesn’t feel cold. White sheets flutter from the clothes lines besides him, the wheat stalks crunching underfoot as he looks around. Haechan knows this place. It’s familiarity doesn’t let him sleep at night. There are days where he stays up and wonders when he can return to this field and lay these memories to rest. Instead, Haechan turns towards the golden light pouring indiscriminately through a door-like opening in the darkness. There’s a tall figure leaning against the frame of what should be a door, hands in his pockets. Instead of comfort he should feel within this, there’s an aching longing lost within his heart that he can’t seem to grasp. He wants to walk up to him. When he walks past the fluttering sheets, Haechan is ten again and running up to hug his older brother. Johnny’s face is still kind to him even in his memories.

Johnny smiles at him as if it hasn’t been eleven years since his Jaeger’s helm exploded and took him with it. He rubs Haechan’s back before lifting him up in his arms, letting Haechan wrap his tiny self around Johnny. Ten year-old Haechan doesn’t know any better and just holds on to Johnny with all his might. He loves him. He loves Johnny. He adores his older brother and there’s stars in his eyes every time Johnny jostles him around playfully or pinches his chubby cheek. In his eyes, Johnny is everything. That everything is stripped away from him in the fields when Johnny wears his Ranger uniform and gives him a forehead kiss goodbye. Bitter resentment wells up in his chest as he hugs his stuffed bear. Johnny’s here. Johnny’s  _ gone _ .

The scene fades from his mind before he can allow himself to cry again. The pain Haechan carries with him sears inside tenfold and it only worsens when the boy in front of him puts his engagement ring back into the red velvet box. His eyes are sore and puffy from countless hours of crying. He’s still wearing a black suit, Haechan realizes. There’s a stone weighing down his gut and he can’t shake off the grief overwhelming his senses. This isn’t his grief. This is the grief of a fiance who lost his lover. The grief of his drift partner.

“Why is he here?” Haechan clutches his fists. “Lee, why is he here?!”

“I’m making the same mistake again.” Mark Lee has his hands in his pockets, staring soullessly at the scene before them. “But this time it’s with you.”

The drift forcefully disconnects. The neurological tie is severed and soon they no longer see one another’s memories. They’re back in reality, gasping for air and pulling the connectors off from their Ranger suits. Haechan peels off his helmet, turning towards Mark.

“What the fuck did you mean by that, Lee?!”

Mark holds his hands up defensively. “Seo-”

“You’re full of shit!” Haechan yells. There’s tears running down his face as he grabs a fistful of Mark’s undershirt and pushes him back. “Don’t you dare say you love me, you...you…”

The fight and fire in him starts to die out as sobs wracked his body. He’s shaking, grip loosening before he sinks to his knees. Mark joins him, pulling his frame into his lap and letting Haechan hold onto him for dear life. He claws at Mark’s back as the grief presents itself and roars its ugly head at them. There’s a deafening silence only filled with Haechan’s sniffles and hiccups, one that holds them quietly as they hold on to one another. Mark is all that he has left of his brother. He doesn’t know whether it’s pitiful or not that the last bits and pieces of Johnny he’s holding on to is his fiance. While Haechan knew that Mark and Johnny had been together, it was still a blow to the gut seeing how strewn apart Mark was over him too. Nothing for them was the same anymore. They were picking up the leftover puzzle pieces. They were left with Johnny’s mess.

It’s been eleven years and Haechan looks at Mark like he’s his world. Not because he sees his brother in him. He won’t project a fantasy onto Mark. He won’t pretend he can bring Johnny back despite his raging grief presenting itself to them firsthand. Despite the years that have worn them both down, Mark has always been there for Haechan. He’s been by his side since they were teens, awkward and fumbling, searching for their places in the world. The room around them is cold. The warmth of the drift simulation had washed away from them, leaving a trembling Haechan in Mark’s hold.

“Do you really believe that it’s a mistake?” Haechan gurgles out. He wipes his eyes with the heel of his palms, letting out a curt gasp when Mark grabs his wrists to stop him. “Did you mean it?”

Mark leans forward and presses his lips to Haechan’s own. His hands loosen from the other Ranger’s, coming up to cup his cheeks instead. His thumbs brush over the apples of Haechan’s cheeks, brushing the tears away as they fell. Haechan’s face was soaked at this point, puffy and red. His sniffles died out. Mark’s lips were gentle. He was too gentle. Haechan’s arms wrapped around Mark’s torso, pulling him close. Fate had been cruel to them both. Where they had been scarred from it, there had also been a garden growing in both their hearts. Mark was too kind to him in every aspect. Maybe it had always been this way; maybe he was making a fool of himself even now but it was hard to come to terms with eleven years of unrequited love that was suddenly requited. Haechan couldn’t push him away. He didn’t want to push him away. Mark’s hand slid up the side of his face, running through Haechan’s fluffy sun blushed hair, pressing into the back of his nape and angling his head to smother him in more kisses.

When Mark pulled away, he rested his forehead against Haechan’s temple. His breath tickled the other Ranger’s ear as he spoke. “I’ve waited years to do that.”

“Mark—”

“I see him in you.” Mark slumped against him. “But you’re not him and I’m in love with  _ you _ .”

“How long?”

“Long enough, sunshine.”

Haechan let out a ragged sigh and sagged against Mark. He buried his nose into the Ranger’s shoulder, breathing him in and letting him go. His fingers ached from where he had clawed at Mark’s clothes. The heaviness in him settles in his bones, unrelenting, unyielding but he crawls out of Mark’s hold and shakily stands up. His legs wobble for a second before he walks back over to the drift harness. The dust and echoes of the past are sealed in their minds and the only way they can reach their full potential as Rangers is to face the monster inside their heads and hearts. They’re compatible because they were meant to love each other. They’re compatible because they share pain, because they’re bound together by a suffocating red thread marionetting their limbs, because of Johnny. They’re compatible as drift partners because only they could understand one another.

Haechan turns to look at Mark, who stares scathingly at his drift harness. Neither of them want to see Johnny again like this. His memories deserve to be at peace, but both Rangers know they’ll never be at peace if they don’t make amends with their own memories. They need to be in full sync when they pilot the Jaeger. One slip up, one chasing a RABIT, or if one of them loses their composure by seeing him in the other’s mind could certainly mean sharing Johnny’s fate.

“Again.” Haechan steps onto the platform where the harness hangs. He looks back at Mark with a solemn look. “Let’s finish what we started.”

The sound of the drift harness connecting is washed away just as the scenery before him does. When he opens his eyes, he’s in an apartment with wide windows overlooking the city. There’s an easel with an almost complete painting of a swan flying over a lake. There’s a tower in the background along with a dragon and that’s when Haechan notices who sits on the stool at the easel. Mark’s silver paint brush defines the lines of the misty lake and pavilion in the corner. Gentle footsteps approach from behind, a body sinking into the black sheets of their bed. Johnny lingers for a few heartbeats before laying on his side.

“How’s Haechan?” Mark asks without looking back at his fiance.

“His condition is stable.” Johnny looks worn down. Beaten emotionally like a rug, left out to dry. “Most of his body is getting reconstructed…”

“This is…” Haechan breathes out as shock overcomes his body. “This is the time during the Leo Project.”   
  
“The project to revive you.” Non-memory Mark chimes in. “Yes.”

“You were thinking of me even then.”   
  
“Not a day went by where I didn’t.”

Haechan turns his attention back to the memory. Johnny looks at home but at the same time out of place. He’s a house of cards waiting to fall and every move he makes pains Haechan to the core. His brother is in no shape to face this kind of rejection from his own fiance. Even from this memory, Haechan can feel the tension between him and Mark. There’s no mistaking it. They were falling apart from the start.

The memory molds into something else. A lab room. Haechan can faintly smell the sterilized room, listening to the sickeningly slow heart monitor. The scene before him is something ripped straight from Mark’s mind, each edge perfectly etched into his mind. There he is, a younger Haechan suspended in a liquid glass tub with mechanical arms working over parts of his body. Various wires and tubes drip out of the edge of the tub, pooling on the floor and hooked up to various other machines. Mark sits against the wall with Johnny, staring—glaring at the tub but not at Haechan.

“I was there when they started the Leo Project.” Mark’s voice rings beside Haechan. “Johnny poured his entire life savings into keeping you alive.”

Haechan chokes on his own breaths. Johnny is asleep against Mark’s shoulder, dark rings under his eyes. Before he can reach out and grasp this memory, it melts away.

“It’s always been him, hasn’t it?” Johnny’s voice tears through Haechan’s thoughts. “You love me but it’s always been him and it always will be.”

“...do you hate me for that?”

“Oh Mark,” Johnny’s laugh fills the space around them with warmth. “I could never. I understand. He’s bright and determined. No one can really stay away from him. Take care of him.”

“Johnny said the same thing to me.” Tears well up in Haechan’s eyes. They threaten to brim over. “He told me to take care of you, Mark.”

“He slow danced with me until sunset and still kissed me goodbye even when he knew.” Mark settled beside Haechan. A moment of silence cascades over them. A moment of peace before Mark’s voice rings out again. “Johnny died in my arms and still was thinking about us. I was connected to him in the drift when he...I saw and felt everything, Hyuck.”

Music washes over the space where memories play over. Haechan soon realizes it’s coming from the Jaeger helm, where he sees Mark staring at the place where Johnny was supposed to be. The helm was in flames, blood coming from Mark’s nose as he forcefully disengaged the drift. Johnny’s body was splayed out in the sand beneath them, Mark scrambling to hold him. He’s missing a leg and an arm, burns all over his body. Haechan feels like he’s going to throw up. He can practically feel Mark’s trauma invading his mind firsthand, each and every pinprick of horror surging through Mark’s veins.

“You’re chasing him, Hyuck.” Mark comes to obscure Haechan’s vision. He can feel his hands ghosting the sides of his face. “Let him go.”

And Haechan does. He lets Mark's memories go. He lets Mark into  _ his _ .

The scenery around them changes again, as it does every time they walk through one another’s memories. Instead of the Shatterdome, it’s the wheat field again. 

“This is where we buried our parents.” Haechan reminisces softly. “After the Kaiju attacked Jeju, we had nowhere to go. No people to love but one another. We were alone and afraid. Johnny tried not to show it but he took it the hardest. He swore a vengeance that destroyed him.”

The scenery shifts to a bench covered in snow. Haechan sits there, beside his younger self wrapped up in torn clothes. The past Haechan could only be twelve, shivering and afraid in the cold. No one comes for him. No one listens to his pitiful sniffles as snow covers his body. But he waits, and he endures, hours on end until Johnny comes up to cradle his frostbitten body and carry him back to the Shatterdome. Unfamiliar, unwelcoming, but it’s better than dying in the snow alone.

“This is where I met you.” Haechan smiles fondly.

Mark glances at him. “You were dying.”

“Yes,” Haechan laughs lightly. “From a cold and malnutrition but Johnny didn’t train until I was better. He didn’t become a Ranger until I was fully healed. The Field Marshal threatened to expel him, but in the end was moved by his devotion and made us both cadets.”

Haechan steps toward a different scene with Mark in tow. “Look here.”

“That’s-”

“Do you know the reason why I almost died? Why Johnny started the Leo Project?” Haechan brushes his hand across the memory, watching it ripple. When the fog clears, Mark sees a Jaeger. Inside the helm of one, with only scientists and Haechan there. “They made me pilot a Jaeger alone. Their first solo prototype.”

Mark doesn’t reply. He only watches the agony take place, the past Haechan’s nerves and neural network being surged until he collapses in a twitching heap. Medics scramble to assess the situation, nearly calling him dead on the assumption his mind’s nerves had been fried from the toll. That wasn’t the case. He groaned, he fidgeted, but any other movement was too much for him. Then…

“It exploded.” Haechan murmurs. “The helm was sabotaged. I should have died.”

“The Jaeger…”

“It was sabotaged too.” Haechan laughs dryly. “But Johnny knew and paid the price for it.”

Mark watches as Haechan heals through his own memories. Both play side by side, from different perspectives. Time melts away from them, watching as Haechan rebounds from his accident into someone stronger. He watches through Haechan’s memory as Mark integrates himself into his life, holding on to the bits and pieces Haechan leaves for him. Less of Johnny but no less love.

“You sabotaged the Jaegers both times.” Haechan turned to look at Mark. “You’ve atoned for your sins, Mark. Lay them to rest.”

Mark’s memories are an open book to Haechan. He watches as The Field Marshal blackmails Mark into doing as he says. He watches the twisted manipulation take place, listening to sickly sweet words roll off a forked tongue and grip Mark by the throat. He watches as Mark sabotages each one of the Jaegers, having to lie through gritted teeth and a clenched heart to the maintenance crews. He watches him hate himself over and over again, stuck in a countless cycle of regret for the actions he did. Haechan watches Mark hurt. He’s a flower; wilting and growing back, only to wilt again.

“I forgive you.” Haechan mutters. “Johnny did too.”

“Johnny knew it was me.” Mark sobs. “He knew and he still forgave me?”

Haechan smiles softly. “You were scared no one would believe you if you told them you were being manipulated but look...we’re here. I can see your memories. Johnny did too. It’s okay now, Mark. You can let go.”

And he does. Mark lets go. He lets Haechan in.

When the drift disengages, Mark stumbles out. He gasps for air and finds himself in Haechan’s embrace. He lets himself be kissed softly, he lets himself finally make amends with the past. Haechan does the same; his past now stitched up jaggedly but things will be better for them now. Haechan brushes his fingers through Mark’s hair, yanking his dog tags from his neck. The action startles the other Ranger, but Haechan pulls out a velvet box and slips a ring into the chain of the tags. He clasps it back around Mark’s neck, smiling at him in a smile that echoes Johnny’s. But Haechan isn’t Johnny and Mark won’t project a fantasy onto him. He loves Haechan and Haechan loves him.

“Mark, don’t make a boy a promise if you know you can’t keep it.” Haechan pecks his lips. “But promise me one thing.”

“What is it?”

Haechan laughs. Melodious, light, lovely. “Promise me you’ll paint again.”

He sees the sun with all the stars. He sees the future in bright lights and smiles. Haechan’s eyes stay in life. His own happiness is no longer tethered to the strings of the past. Here, with Haechan, a fragment of the past made new, he is happy. A tender happiness for sure but raw and real. The world is ending so there’s no time to hold on to the regrets of what he should and shouldn’t have done. What he could have done. The past is a large monster to overcome but they overcame it. They survived to overcome it. So, Haechan forgives. He forgives with his whole heart and he teaches Mark to forgive himself too. 

Instead of making promises he can’t keep, Mark just presses his forehead to Haechan’s.


End file.
